


i need this

by shatterstag



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Red Romance, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-13
Updated: 2011-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-20 09:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatterstag/pseuds/shatterstag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(also known as Nothing and/or Stag's Sadfic. John deals with the events of Sburb, the death of his father, and his confusion with his sexuality. Pretty much just all my headfanons rolled together with delicious angst)</p><p> </p><p>There is too much pain and loss already in his heart to deal with, so much that he can’t hold onto it anymore, can’t wrestle and lock away everything and pretend he’s okay. In the week since Sburb began, he still reels with how much he feels, how much has changed within himself, how much he’s aged and how much he’s <i>seen</i> – wars and death and space and destruction, Dersite ships on fire off the shoulder of Skaia, and little grey aliens he wants to hold onto, tell that everything will be okay and that he might be in love but he’s not sure because he’ll be terrified if he is. He wants to say that if he is, he’ll never let go, never let those big eyes out of his sight again, so they’re both safe and can drift and feel nothing but each other. So there is no barrier of grey and blue text and only the lines of small hands and the texture of dark hair and salty tears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i need this

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a song fic, but I would definitely recommend listening to these two songs while reading through the fic!!! They kind of set the tone and I wrote to them.  
> [My Skin - Natalie Merchant](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izqSWCh5DKY&feature=related)  
> [This Will Make You Love Again - IAMX](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dzi3roEjn4)
> 
> So yeah this is actually sort of old, but, to be honest, I still really love this. A lot. And I thought it was about time that I start uploading it here, hopefully so I can motivate myself to finish it.
> 
>  
> 
> Original prompt:  
> "I would really super love to see something where John is freaked the fuck out by his attraction to Karkat. He has already made the "I am not a homosexual" statement and maybe he is just too young to realize, I know when I was 13 I was still figuring out if I liked boys or girls, and now over ten years later I am still sometimes wondering! Maybe he does not know himself. Maybe he is really horribly in denial.  
> ...  
> TL;DR  
> JOHN IS IN THE CLOSET, DOESN'T REALIZE IT, AND DOESN'T WANT TO COME OUT IF/WHEN HE DOES REALIZE"

  
John Egbert is not gay.   


Girls are nice, yes, and while he’s never liked one before that definitely does not make him anything less then 100% heterosexual. When it was first brought up he thought about it a lot and was pleased to find nothing had changed – Liv Tyler was so gorgeous it wasn’t even funny and Cage is his _hero_ and there are _definitely_ no smoochy smoochy feelings there, not matter what Dave says.

He is, without a doubt, not homosexual. He makes sure that everybody understands that.

Then why is it that when Karkat sends him messages he gets irrationally excited and giddy. Why is it that when Karkat shakily demands to know why he’s covered in blood he has strange pains in his heart, pains different to the grief he already feels there. Why is it that when Karkat says that he wishes he could make things better, wipe his tears away, hold him, it only makes him cry more, because he knows that Karkat isn’t here. Karkat _can’t_ make things better, _can’t_ comfort him, tell him it’s going to be alright, because he doesn’t even exist in this universe. There are only grey words swimming through his tears.

It hurts. It hurts because he’s alone, terribly, finally alone. His clothes are soaked with his own blood, his Dad’s blood, Rose’s Mum’s blood. His father is dead, Rose has vanished along with Jack, and he sits deep within the tumour’s chamber on the lip of one of the symbols, crying to his computer because he doesn’t have a fucking clue of what else he can do except hide away. Crying to the only one who has felt as much pain as he does now. And it’s so stupid, so ridiculous, because what has happened to him to make him feel this awful? Where has John gone? Chirpy, happy, optimistic John has disappeared, and he has to take his glasses off to roughly rub his eyes of all the tears.

He doesn’t like doing that. It means everything goes blurry because of his eyesight, and then he can’t see Karkat’s text trying desperately to console him.

  


  


  
  
______   
  


  
  


  


Hours pass. In that time, things get better. The Scratch is planned, the rift into the troll’s session about to be opened; he is with his friends on Dave’s world, they are all dealing with their heartache together, they are somehow still alive, and he is still not gay.

Even if he has to keep telling himself that all the time after Karkat confesses to him. Because he does definitely not want creepy hate-love; not that he has a problem with it, he guesses, he just doesn’t want to be on the end of such intense, burning hatred.

 _His_ Karkat is different. _His_ Karkat is his friend, the boy that was there for him when nobody else was, the one he helped survive when everything in the troll’s session went to hell. The one _he_ comforted, supported, when it was Karkat’s turn to feel crushing, overwhelming grief. He doesn’t want Past Karkat’s hate love because he is too fond of their budding friendship and understanding.

He _definitely_ does not consider what it would be like to have a normal, non hateful relationship with him. Because he is not a homosexual, and it shouldn’t even cross his mind when he ends the conversation, feeling weird and numb, like he’s done something terribly wrong to reject him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Veil is so cold and metallic, covered and surrounded by darkness. It’s like a twisted maze designed for rats by crazy mad scientists, full of meandering passageways and hidden rooms and stairs that make Dave giddy.

But in the end they find the lab and the few remaining trolls huddled in there, waiting for them – Terezi, Karkat, Sollux and Kanaya. John wants to ask about Vriska, because all he’s been told is that she’s disappeared, but whenever he starts to they all stare at him like they want to say, “please, ask anything but that.” And because they’re all bloody, dejected messes, he bites his tongue to hold it back. Instead the kids sit with them in the corner of the computer lab, quietly, together, and John leans his head against Karkat’s who doesn’t complain, just stares at the opposite wall with his legs drawn up to his chest and his hands scrunched into stiff fists, knuckles white.

He pretends that the bubbling feeling in his heart and stomach is just excitement, nerves, caution at meeting them finally, but it’s hard to ignore the texture of Karkat’s hair on his cheek, his small hands, his huge gold eyes that have a weird unnameable emotion in them when they blink at each other.

Later that day – if days and nights have any meaning out here – he finds Karkat walking blankly through the grey corridors of the Veil, alone with his hands stuffed into pockets and back hunched, and John tiptoes up behind him and pushes his shoulder, giggling, making Karkat jump and explode with fucks and shits and I Hate You Egbert Why Are You So Crazy.

And they stare at each other, very close, Karkat still huffing and throwing his arms about as he complains loudly, and John reminds himself that they are just Very Close Friends who Have A Mutual Understanding and there is absolutely nothing at all gay with his concern when he has the chance to say, “are you okay? You looked so lonely and sad.”

“I’m fine, dipshit, it’s _you_ who’s so fucking retarded, next time you jump me like that I’m going to punch your nose so far through your body that when you’re dead you’ll still be smelling your own shit.” He scowls down at his shoes, a little bundle of frustration and anger and John feels such an overwhelming adoration for him – as a friend! Friendlove! Not anything else! – because he’s so tiny and permanently ornery yet he knows what’s underneath all the meaningless threats and insults.

“Are you sure? I know it’s only been a couple of hours since—“

“Don’t fucking talk about that, okay.” His broken, angry eyes almost glow in the half light.

John steps forward, because he can tell by the way his friend hunches his shoulders, the way his arms are shaking, that he’s trying desperately to hold everything together – the other trolls, the situation, his own emotional state – and is failing miserably now that they’re alone together, now that he doesn’t have to keep up the façade. “You know,” John says quietly, “if you want that hug we rainchecked…”

Karkat doesn’t answer or look up, but he can see his big, dilated black pupils staring at him nervously from under his mess of black hair. John forgets all about that overwhelming hate that the troll used to have for him when when, after a long, drawn out moment, Karkat scrapes his shoe against the ground like a shy school girl and squeaks, “yeah? What about it, asswipe?”

He doesn’t care about gayness or hate-crushes when he reaches out and pulls a squawking, surprised Karkat roughly forward, grinning to himself when he wraps his arms around narrow, flailing shoulders. “I just thought you might need it now.” He pretends he isn’t talking about himself at that moment; pretends that he is a strong Friendleader who is a tough street maverick with a heart of gold and isn’t still hurting terribly on the inside. Because Karkat is here now, and he almost wants to cry so he can wipe away the tears like he promised he would.

The troll quietens after a moment, shutting his muttering mouth with a snap, and he’s warm and tense and _shaking,_ and he wraps his arms clumsily around John’s waist. He giggles again, and Karkat mutters, “shut up, you’re spoiling it,” into the crook of his shoulder without much conviction.

 

 

* * *

 

 

John Egbert cannot be gay. That’s what it really boils down to, in the end. They’re supposed to restart the human race, right? And that involves babies, and while thinking of Rose that way makes him feel vaguely sick – he loves her deeply, but only as a friend and doing anything with her is… ugh, it squicks him out – it’s not like they really have any choice in the matter. Not like they’ve had any choice throughout their whole session.

It’s wrong, not on the “being gay is wrong” level, but on the “the future depends on this” way. When he can feel Karkat’s eyes on his back, see his sad, angular little face, see his mouth thin into a stubborn line of sharp little teeth, see his big eyes and long eyelashes avoid him when they’re talking, he has to remind himself that.

That he’s not gay. That whatever Karkat feels for him, whatever weird troll-love thing he has, can’t work. He lies, curled up in a stash of blankets in the corner of one of the lab rooms, wide awake while the other humans sleep soundly around him, thinking about it for hours. And for some reason he can’t explain it _hurts_. It’s like a little punch to his heart, like he’s betraying Karkat. _Betraying himself_ is a whispered concept that keeps repeating itself in his head, but that’s just silly. Why should he think that? He’s definitely not gay, because he thinks Kanaya and Terezi are pretty, and that Vriska was pretty while he was talking to her through chat. He’s never thought any other guy was pretty, and Nic Cage doesn’t count because his hair is beautiful and his wife beater so rugged but he only thinks that because he’s jealous and wants them for himself.

Karkat is not attractive. Of course he isn’t. John does _not_ spend a weirdly long amount of time watching him, and even if he does it’s only because Karkat is an alien and it’s super interesting to watch him move, hear the weird sounds that come from his lips when his long grey tongue curls just so. Okay, so maybe he’s attractive in a cute, adorabloodthirsty way, but not like _that_. John doesn’t want to wander through the corridors looking for him, doesn’t feel that aching need to be near him even though it does weird things to his body, like make his palms sweat and his heart beat funnily. Nope, definitely doesn’t.

He hides his head under a pillow and groans loudly into the one mashed into his face so he doesn’t wake everybody. Why is this so hard? Why did all this have to happen, why does he have to make babies with Rose and why doesn’t he get to stay at home, on Earth, with no meteors, and grow up with posters of race cars and scantly clad girls pinned to his walls like the 100% heterosexual boy he is.

Why can’t he just be himself?

Why does he finally fall asleep to the image of Karkat’s big black pupils and the lines of his small hands fisting in dark hair?

  


  


  
  
______   
  


  


It terrifies him when they’re not alone together; when Dave is with him and Karkat along with Terezi, when Rose watches him coolly from across the room. Karkat is one of his Best Bros and he doesn’t _like_ him so why do they stare at him like that, like they know something he doesn’t? He tries to make it painfully obvious that he’s not a homosexual, because he definitely isn’t, but it doesn’t stop Rose’s eyebrows from shooting up into her hairline whenever she sees him with Karkat. What’s the big deal anyway? He’s allowed to talk to his friend, because that’s what fellow friendleaders do – they make plans together, talk about the future, and if they do comfort each other, if Karkat does let his head bang into John’s shoulder once or twice when he’s tired and angry and frustrated, resting for that brief moment in-between the shadows of the lab room computers, it is in a _totally_ manly way.

And if John holds Karkat's head close, impulsively runs his fingers through thick black hair and tells him that everything is going to be okay, it's only because that's what it takes to comfort the both of them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Outside the threat of the Reckoning, they have time. Time to plan, to consider, to heal and think about all that has gone right and wrong. Days pass in the Veil, as humans and trolls begin to learn and accept each other.   


Some of those days, John can’t take it. Can’t take all the turmoil in his head, and when he closes his eyes all he can see is his hand holding his father’s, both dripping with bright red ink, and he has to rub the vision out with his palms until all he can see are exploding patterns of colour on his eyelids and then nothing.

Sometimes he just needs to be alone, when trying to explain to people gets too hard. It’s like something in him, a foundation of his personality, has cracked, and suddenly all the sadness he’s never experienced comes pouring out like a flooded dam. And friendleaders aren’t supposed to cry, to be weak, and even though he knows his friends would be more than willing to comfort him sometimes it just _doesn’t help_ and all he wants to do is let it all out into the sleeve of his sweater, cry until he’s dry, until his emotions are washed up and beached in cold emptiness.

One day, he’s sitting alone on the benches in the computer lab, wrapped up in himself, knees drawn up and face buried in his arms because everything is too hard and he shouldn’t have to deal with all this confusion and anger and depression when he’s only thirteen and still growing up. He thinks everybody is asleep elsewhere but he’s not sure because it’s always black in the Veil and for all he knows it could _always_ be night. It’s dark in the room – only one computer screen is turned on, the screen painfully bright and intense in the shadows.

If it had of been turned off, he wouldn’t have noticed Karkat standing there.

When he does he jumps and almost shouts in fright, because for a moment he thinks in a craze of sudden fear _is that Jack?_ but no, Karkat’s eyes are bright and orange in the dark and he doesn’t move – simply stands there, staring at John, and he wonders how long he’s been watching him sniffle into his sleeve.

“Hi,” the troll says awkwardly after a moment, rubbing his shoulder. “I didn’t think you were in here.” It’s about as apologetic as he’s going to get.

John wipes his eyes behind his glasses and swallows back the choke, that constricted feeling in his throat that comes from too much crying. “What are you doing here?” he hiccups.

“I… I’ve been trying to find out if anything else went wrong in our sessions. On the computers.” He gestures weakly to the screen that is still on, and John realises that all of Terezi’s muttered words finally make sense. The other trolls think he’s completely obsessed with backtracking through time to desperately find the one thing that might have saved them. He must have left it on to come back to, and John chose the worst time to hide away in here.

He thinks they just don’t understand that it’s the only “hope” Karkat will let himself feel.

The boy walks over, pulls himself up onto the bench to sit crosslegged next to John, and he almost wishes he would leave because he’d rather have time to himself but he doesn’t want to complain either. Karkat picks absently at the hem of his jeans while John sniffles and wipes his nose again, the collar of his shirt soaked with the salty tears running down his chin and neck. He’s an absolute mess but it doesn’t really matter when he’s with Karkat because, in the end, they’re both going through the same thing. Leaders who are breaking under the stress and the loss, and he’s surprised and proud and jealous at how Karkat can still, somehow, keep it together like this, that he’s stronger than John internally. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that John has always tried to be optimistic – never really realised at how much could go wrong, that people could _die_ here, let alone his Dad, who had always been so invincible and such a concrete presence in his life.

Karkat, on the other hand, has no pretty rose pink flowery assumptions about the universe. He trusts things to go wrong. He’s experienced death and pain and betrayal already, in the world around him and in himself. His entire life has been a fucked up mess, as he had said to John one time, and he’s never expected it to get any better. Sburb is just the cherry on the cake.

It breaks his heart to think that that’s all that Karkat can feel now, that he’s become so jaded to everything around him that anger is the only emotion that fuels his stubborn willpower. He wants to reach out and pinch his cheeks and tell him to stop being so silly and cute, run his fingers through his hair some more, rest his head on his chest and hold his hand there to feel his beating heart and maybe, just maybe, if he shows him how much he cares something deep inside Karkat will mend itself back together and he’ll be able to feel more than just desperation and rage.

But instead he bites the inside of his cheek and lets a choked sob overwhelm him because why does he feel like way? He _can’t_ , he _shouldn’t_ and why why _why_ are these thoughts somehow breaking his identity apart? Why do they make him second guess himself, make him wonder if he’s been lying this whole time, wonder what the lie actually is? The monitor that’s turned on becomes a slash and blurred white in his vision and he’s crying again, forehead beating against his folded arms on his knees with his glasses digging into his nose and he wishes Karkat would just leave so he can feel okay about himself.

But he doesn’t. Karkat reaches out and awkwardly wraps an arm around John’s back, shifts closer until their hips bump, burries his head in John’s shoulder and it does that stupid thing to his heart, makes it skip a beat in-between his sobs. It’s so embarrassing because he's never cried like this, especially not in front of other people, and now he’s a confused ball of retarded emotions and feelings and it’s too much for him. He lifts his face to ask Karkat to leave but when he does…

When he does Karkat unwinds himself from John to reach up and ease his glasses off his face. There’s not much difference in vision. The troll’s eyes were already swimming points of yellow through his tears. He doesn’t ask for them back, question what he’s doing, because he doesn’t trust his voice.

Wordlessly, Karkat reaches up and brushes the tears from John’s eyes. His thumb is surprisingly gentle and soft. And time does this weird thing where it sort of stands still, his breath catches shakily in his throat, and he wonders if Karkat isn’t really the Knight of Blood and instead has time powers and is abusing the hell out of them.

“Just like I promised?” he says quietly, face uncomfortably close to John’s, and his sniffles a bit but can’t find the words because he’s so overwhelmed for a moment and there’s this weird buzzing in his chest and stomach that makes it hard to concentrate or hear anything.

Karkat’s thumb meanderings it’s way down John’s face, tracking the lines of his tears and brushing them aside, brushing against his upper lip which is wet and salty. He can’t breathe.

He cups John’s damp cheek in his little hand. He can feel the lines of his palm, the roughness of his grey skin, holding him like at any moment he’s about to break and that’s pretty much accurate anyway.

And Karkat closes the gap and kisses him. His lips are awkward and clumsy because they’re both only thirteen, even if sometimes it feels like they’ve aged twenty years since the beginning and John can already see lines on his forehead when he looks into a mirror. But it’s sweet and simple and Karkat’s eyes are screwed shut, he can feel his mouth trembling a bit, his hand shaking when his thumb draws little mindless circles on his cheek with his tears.

It hurts. It hurts so much when John has to pull away from Karkat’s touch and hand and he can still feel him there, like a phantom on his face, and the look in those big gold eyes kills him. He can’t. It’s too confusing and he doesn’t know what to do – just wants to hide away in silence and never see anybody again, never have to look inside himself. It feels like something is grabbing his heart with an iron grip, constricting and giving chinese burns until everything is quivering. He’s the biggest bastard in paradox space when he forces out what he can't find the courage to fully say. “K-karkat I… I can’t I’m… not…”

Karkat doesn’t even look at him.

Drops John’s glasses into his lap, pulls away, climbs down from the computer bench.  
He doesn’t look back when he walks through the darkness, alone, out of the room in silence like it's a walk of shame, and in that moment John _knows_. Knows that Karkat realised from the beginning that John would never accept him like that.  


He watches him leave with his mouth hanging open, touching a hand to his lips because he can still feel that pressure there, taste him, still feel the texture of his finger tracing on his skin. New tears slide down the patterns on his cheek and he doesn’t even care enough to rub them away because it feels like that would break the illusion of careful hands and lips that still ghost across his skin.

He doesn’t understand what he feels. He feels terrible, wrenching pain for having to reject Karkat.

But most of all he feels pain because he thinks he’s just ruined his chance at something that would have been amazing. He hurts because his first kiss is with another boy, an alien boy, and why should it feel so good if he’s not gay.

Because he isn’t. Right?

He curls up into a ball on the desk and holds his head in his hands, crying and feeling more alone than he ever has before. Even Karkat has left him, and there are no hands wiping away his tears or arms around him and no blurred grey text to cling to. The thing he wanted the most, he’s ruined.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
It terrifies him when they’re alone together; when everybody else leaves the room inexplicably and he's left to watch Karkat wander listlessly around the place. John tries desperately to slip out as quickly as he can because he can’t stand staying alone in the same room with him any more. It’s like having his arms grabbed and pulled in opposite directions because Karkat is his friend and he wants to be with him but at the same time it’s so painful and awkward and when their eyes meet he sees… nothing.   


Not even regret or anger.

It scares him.

Terezi and Kanaya have taken to staring at him; Kanaya’s skin still glowing eerily and Terezi’s red eyes looking just off his shoulder, like she can see something behind him that he can’t. It creeps him out and more than anything he feels guilty, Terezi silently judging him when her mouth is a thin black line and he knows that they’ve probably guessed, or that Karkat has told them what happened.

He knows his friend was only trying to help, trying to be there for him like he couldn’t be all those days ago but he’s pretty sure Karkat doesn’t really understand, not in the end. Doesn’t understand the implications. Doesn’t understand why John sits up late into that night, wrapped in his pile of blankets and staring blankly at the wall, trying, just trying, to have a moment of peace.

Because,

he thinks that he might be a little bit gay.

And it scares him more than anything.

 


End file.
